Make Sure You Don't Miss
by Can'tStopImagining
Summary: The lead up to a first kiss is always just as important. Nicky/Lorna.


**A/N: **My interpretation of season three, through Nicky and Lorna scenes. This isn't necessarily how I want it to go, but just some of my thoughts. Usual warnings for these two kinda go unsaid (drug addiction, mental health issues etc.) Lyrics are from Ryan O'Shaughnessy's First Kiss which I kinda feel down to my bones with this stupid ship. Credit to the fantastic Tiffany for lending me her headcanons, and Sophie for her encouragement along the way. You girls are great.

* * *

_When you move in for the first kiss_

_Just make sure you don't miss_

_Keep your eyes closed_

_'Cause every story has a beginning, a middle, and end_

* * *

Lorna goes to the SHU. It's only six days, but Nicky knows from experience that six days can be enough to break even the strongest person, and she also knows that Lorna is _not_ strong.

Nicky might not have a religious bone in her body, but she still spends those six days praying that Lorna comes out of that place in one piece. They're the antsiest, most dangerous six days of her life in Litchfield because not only is Lorna gone, but Red's still in medical, and – worst of all – Nicky's got her eyes trained on an entire stash of her biggest vice, of her worst enemy.

Even when she's in her own bunk, eyes skimming across the page of a book, she can feel its eyes on her, can't stop herself from going to check on it once, twice, three times a day. It's on her mind twenty four hours a day, and she keeps thinking back to how, before all of this mess, she had it right there in her hands, and she could have taken it, but she didn't, and how she's not so sure she has the same self-restraint now.

She drifts. She can't keep her focus in electrical, doesn't finish her meals, finds herself phasing out of conversation with Chapman and Yoga and the others. She's always had a brain that works too hard, that is constantly connecting dots, asking questions that don't need answering, and it's on over-drive lately. She's always been good at feigning apathy, but she can't even do that. She can't even pretend like she's not worrying over anything and everything, and it's only when Piper, with this completely serious expression in her eyes, asks her what's wrong, that she realises that _shit_ everyone can see right through her like she's a sheet of cellophane.

Or, they can't, because they don't know about the heroin behind the grate, or the inner torment that's controlling her every movement, but they can see that she's not her usual a-okay self and that's bothering enough.

Everyone's talking about Lorna; about Rosa's escape, about Christopher's visit, about how she isn't the person they thought she was. If it isn't someone making fun of her, then it's someone making out like they're actually scared of her, and Nicky's not sure which one makes her angrier. She's well aware that she's letting it bother her, that everyone can _see_ how much it bothers her in the way she slams her fist into walls, smashes her tray down hard on the lunch hall tables, pushes through people without so much as a muttered apology. She doesn't fucking do anything about it because the last thing Lorna needs is her in the SHU as well.

She's relieved when it's only six days, and on day seven they deliver Lorna back to the suburbs in one piece.

Almost.

She tries not to crowd Lorna, tries to give her some space to readjust, tries to keep an eye on her from a distance. She hugs her close and tells her 'I'm so glad to have you back, kid', but she doesn't smother her. It takes every single ounce of willpower to force herself to stay away no matter how desperate she is to drink in every single part of Lorna now that she's back, but she does it.

Still, Lorna isn't right. Even four days later, she isn't right. She doesn't do her hair nice, she doesn't touch the lipstick that Nicky carefully kept safe whilst she was gone. She doesn't wear any make-up at all. That isn't what's worrying, though. What really concerns Nicky is how quiet she is, how different her entire demeanour is. Lorna's always been comparable to a little ray of sunshine, at least to Nicky's mind, and now she's more like fog; thick and grey and difficult to read. She seems to drift through her days in much the same way Nicky did when she was gone, but quieter, sadder, less angry.

The new attention she receives from other inmates is confusing to her, and it's clear that Lorna doesn't know how to react, so she stops reacting at all. Appearances have always been everything, but suddenly she no longer cares. She stops shovelling her food in in the lunch hall, dawdles around the prison like she has no place to be and no inclination to do anything. Mostly, she spends a lot of time alone in her bunk, and when Nicky tries to interfere, to keep her company, she's turned away.

Not only is that worrying, but it hurts, too, and though Nicky knows she shouldn't take it personally, inevitably, she does.

* * *

Six days. It's only six days that she's in the SHU, but it's enough.

Lorna's not a well person. This isn't news to her, isn't something that six days in solitary confinement teaches her, it's just fact. She goes in a damaged person, she comes out a damaged person.

When she first gets thrown into the small, damp room, she spends most of her time in the corner, cowering and crying and wishing she was anywhere else but here. She would rather relive her visitation with Christopher a thousand times over than be left here.

When they shove food through the door to her, she doesn't even look at it, doesn't even move from her position in the corner of the room, knees tucked under her chin, arms holding her legs tight to her body. She knows from the last time Nicky was in here not to touch the food. Nicky doesn't talk about the SHU – no one does, actually – but she's said enough, in private, with only Lorna to hear it. She remembers when Nicky came out, how all she wanted to do was forget. How they ended up fucking hard, anywhere and everywhere, like maybe if Nicky surrounded herself so deeply in Lorna, she might be able to pretend she never went away.

Nicky's a much stronger person than Lorna is.

By day three, all Lorna can concentrate on is the voices in her head, the demons that she was always able to manage on the outside, to drown out with magazines and radio programmes and hours of back and forth with Nicky. But here, there's nothing to distract her from them, and they consume her, every hour of every day. She doesn't sleep because that just makes them worse, and she hasn't been afraid of the dark since she was a very little girl, but suddenly she is, and she can't even bear to close her eyes for a minute in case something climbs out of the darkness and comes for her.

When they finally let her out, it isn't relief she feels, it's fear. Fear that even once she's back in her bunk, in her cube, with her friends, with Nicky, she won't be able to shut the voices out. Fear that everyone will see her for the monster she is, and she won't be able to stop them, won't have the strength to keep up the pretence she's been working so hard at for so long.

She knows dragging herself to the showers, getting herself clean, changing into clean clothes, sorting her hair out, putting a full face of make-up on, is the first step, but she gets as far as the clean clothes, and she doesn't have the energy to do the rest.

Nicky stays away from her, and it doesn't register until it's too late that she thinks that's what Lorna needs. What Lorna actually needs is to be constantly surrounded by sound, to be held onto and never let go of, but when Nicky watches her from afar, cautiously, like she's going to self-destruct if she gets too close, it just makes Lorna feel even more like a monster. _Even Nicky doesn't want to be anywhere near you. You fucked up so bad that even she won't touch you_. Even if a part of her knows this isn't what's happening, is rational enough to realise that Nicky's not pushing her away, rather inching closer slowly, trying not to spook her, it's smothered by the part of her that feels completely rejected, and as a result, she can only make the distance between them worse. When her mind's begging for Nicky to come closer, and her fingers are itching to sink deep into the cotton of her khakis and never let go, her voice is telling her to leave, her actions are pushing her away. It's a compulsion she can't stop no matter how hard she tries to.

She's acutely aware that everyone is talking about her. She can't walk into the lunch hall, or the rec room, or even sit in her own bunk without hearing them whispering. At first she shakes it off, puts it down to the voices like everything else, but when she realises it's real and not some cruel trick her mind is playing on her, it hurts. People can be so cruel. People who she's lived with for months, years even, who she's called friends (family, in some cases), people who don't hesitate to chew her out for something _she_ doesn't understand so they certainly can't.

It's all a mess. It's a mess when she goes into the SHU, and it's more of a mess when she comes out.

* * *

The week trickles by, laced with confusion and hurt and loneliness.

It's Monday when Lorna eventually starts to look more like herself. She's got her hair in neat curls, and her cheeks are pink, her lips accented in pinkish red, her eyes dark. She even wears the hint of a smile. The relief Nicky feels is overwhelming and she knows she's over-eager in her approach to sit with her at breakfast, that every word she says to the girl is over-bearing, her feelings only thinly veiled. She cracks too many jokes (yes, there is such a thing, even to Nicky Nichols), shoots Lorna one too many crooked smiles that aren't always met with a smile in return. There's an uneasiness between them that has never existed before, even when Lorna first 'broke up' with her, and Nicky's eagerness to fix the problem just makes it worse, results in her digging herself into an even deeper hole.

Still, Lorna is smiling, and tossing jokes back and forth, and she finishes her eggs in record time, so there's that.

Nicky goes to electrical, and is surprised when Lorna follows her. She says something about being reassigned. It makes sense because she can't drive the transport van anymore, but Nicky can't really imagine Lorna being any good at re-wiring lamps, either, and the thought of her yielding a tool belt is both hilarious and oddly sexy, and Nicky has to swallow it before she spends the whole work assignment fixated on it.

"She seems to be doing okay," Chapman whispers two days later, whilst Lorna's serving people in the tool lock up, and Nicky nods, doesn't want to verbally agree or disagree because she hasn't quite worked out what 'okay' is in Lorna Morello world, and she's scared she might jinx it, send her plummeting off the deep end again.

"Eyy, Morello, you got a nice big tool in that shed for me?" she says, instead, leaning back on her stool with a cocky little smile on her lips, because that's who she is, and that's the person Lorna relates to, and it's safer to flirt, to tease, to avoid feelings and act like everything's normal.

"Go fuck yourself," Lorna shoots back, raising her middle finger, and there's a mischievous glint in her eyes that hasn't been there in so long that Nicky almost forgot it existed, and _yeah_, she thinks, _she is doing okay._

* * *

She can't pinpoint when she starts to feel herself again, but it's around the same time as her lipstick makes a reappearance, and suddenly forcing herself to act normal around people isn't quite as difficult as it has been. Lorna falls back into routine, only a slightly altered one, one that includes spending all day in an electrical workshop with Nicky and Piper. She furrows her eyebrows when she's given the assignment. Driving, she could handle. Driving is something she's not good at but something she _can_ do. Electrical is completely different and she knows she will never figure out her way around a dryer's wiring, so she doesn't bother attempting to, is relieved when Luschek suggests she mans the tool lock up.

Working in electrical means being close to Nicky all day every day. It's funny how quickly they fall back into their old rhythm, and she pretends that it doesn't feel forced, like they're not both trying too hard. She laughs at Nicky's jokes, rolls her eyes at her when she flirts, pretends that conversation they had on the stairs all those weeks ago didn't happen, because it's easier to do that. It's easier not to question it, not to think about it. Their friendship always was the one thing that came naturally, the one part of her that she never feared fucking up, and she's not ready to admit that it feels like it's hanging on by a thread.

Since the truth surfaced about Christopher, the voices in Lorna's head have picked a new topic of conversation, and it shouldn't be surprising that it's Nicky that comes under their scrutiny. Outside of the SHU, Lorna falls back on her old methods of blocking them out, but that doesn't mean they're gone entirely. They convince her that Nicky's trying to hurt her, that the reason she's sleeping with all those girls is to make her jealous, that she's no good for her. At the same time, they're telling Lorna how disgusting she is, how loving Nicky is disgusting, just another part of the disease. Because she _is_ diseased. It's like a cancer that's destroying her but in a very different way from Miss Rosa's. She deserves it. She deserves to be the way she is for all the awful things she's done, all the awful thoughts she's had.

All Lorna wants is to be normal. All she's dreamt of since she was a little girl is the husband and kids and the picket fence and the dream wedding with the big white dress, and Nicky's a threat to that. That's what her head keeps telling her over and over and she's tired of fighting it, but at the same time, Nicky's the only thing that keeps her anchored, and she's afraid of letting go of that.

* * *

"Hey, are you and Morello playing nice again?"

It's Boo standing in the doorway of her cube, and Nicky glares in her direction, still hasn't quite forgiven her for what she did to Red and the family, certainly hasn't forgiven her for the things she's said about Lorna since then. But she's trying out this new thing of not holding grudges, so she doesn't completely ignore her.

"Not that it's any of your business, we never stopped 'playing nice'..." she says, folding her hands behind her head.

"Whatever, look, can you tell her to sort herself out because I'm telling you it's fucking creepy having her sitting up all night staring at me whilst I sleep, especially now we know about the stalking thing, you feel me son?"

It takes everything Nicky's got not to start a fight with her there and then, but luckily for Boo, her information is more of a concern to Nicky than Lorna's pride. She tells Boo to get the fuck out of her bunk, and spends the rest of the morning mulling over what to do.

* * *

"Boo says you're not sleeping; that true, kid?"

Lorna lays her hand of cards face down on the blanket, lets out a little sigh. She knows Nicky is only looking out for her, but the velocity with which rumours and gossip spread in this place is ridiculous, and she's tired of being the centre of attention. She's tired, period, actually.

"I'm fine," she says, flattening her khakis, "I'd be just great if people talkin' about me for five minutes."

There's a hint of guilt in Nicky's expression but it dissipates into concern, and she hardens her jaw, places her own cards down opposite Lorna's, "fine. Forget talkin' _about_ you, and let me talk _to_ you. Don't you think we should talk?"

Exasperated, Lorna's voice does that annoying squeaking thing when she replies, the thing she wishes it wouldn't because she knows it takes any bite out of anything she says, "I wasn't aware we'd _stopped_ _talking_."

Here it comes, she thinks, bracing herself for the blow that's been inevitable since that day on the stairs where she opened herself fully to Nicky, spilled her secrets, let the pretence fall away for the first time, if only briefly. She's waited for this moment ever since, ran over it in her head. All the ways she'd answer the questions, all the things she'd say to push Nicky off the scent of her true hideous form, of how much of her this _thing_ had consumed already. But now that the time has come, she has nothing to say, and her hands are sweaty, and she feels more inclined to run away than stay and fight her corner. _Either way, she's going to leave you._

"I don't have nothin' to say to you," she finally grounds out, and it comes out sounding colder than she meant it, but didn't her Ma always say that it was better to fight fire with fire than to wait to be burned.

(Lorna had taken that too literally once or twice).

"I tell you I love you and you've got nothing to say?"

So, it isn't the conversation she was expecting, but it's just as bad, and Lorna feels herself tense, feels her hands ball into fists that land anxiously in her lap, and she doesn't know what to say because in a lot of ways this is worse. She's rehearsed the other conversation, gone over her lines, spent years pretending she's something she isn't until it's practically her identity. But this is different. This is something new, and something she's only started to feel recently, and something she buried with the last time she and Nicky had sex, and though she acknowledged Nicky's words before, she never let them sink in. No one has ever said they love her, and the fact that the first time she hears it, it's coming from a woman, a woman who she has fought hard _not_ to love, makes it ten times worse. It's not because she's ever believed it to be wrong before, but somehow it's different when it comes to herself, her own reality.

"I'm not... I'm not like you, Nick," she says, and her voice comes out small and fragile, and she finds herself having to pick at threads on her khakis so she has something to do with her hands.

"What are you saying?" but the way she says it implies she knows _exactly_ what Lorna's saying.

"I don't have those... feelings. For girls, I mean. I'm... not... y'know..." she feels like every word she's saying is so obviously a lie that Nicky's going to see straight through her, straight into that part of her that knows the truth, is pushing it as far away from herself as possible.

"You weren't saying that when my face was in your cunt," Nicky says, bitterly, and there's a sense of deja vu that hits Lorna square in the stomach because _here they go again_ on the same merry go round they've been on over and over.

Lorna flinches. She never could stand it when Nicky used that word. She flinches because she knows it's true. She knows that a part of her sought Nicky out and not the other way around (though it was obvious from day one that Nicky was interested). She knows that denying her feelings is hurting Nicky and no matter how much her head tries to convince her that Nicky deserves it, she knows deep inside that she doesn't. It doesn't stop her from saying it though, because no matter how much Lorna wants to be able to control what she says, what she thinks, what she does, she never has been able to, not really, and as usual, she's better at pushing away than she is at being honest.

* * *

Losing Lorna once was hard.

Losing Lorna twice is devastating.

_You only get one chance to break my heart_. Nicky knows this isn't true because otherwise she wouldn't keep going back for more. Maybe Lorna's different. In fact, she knows she is, because she's never been consumed by self-loathing like she is when Lorna turns her away. She might have been bitter when they stopped fucking, but this is a completely different feeling, and the fact that she's still got a shitload of heroin stored away behind a grate is playing heavier on her heart than ever. She starts to check on it three, four, five times a day. Sometimes she finds herself just sitting there, staring at it, until she realises what she's doing and how suspicious she looks, and moves away from it.

Part of her method for staying clean, whether she likes to admit it or not, was Lorna. Not when she first went cold, before she knew who Lorna was, before she knew how it felt to have your heart ache in your chest for somebody you barely knew. But as soon as she'd begun to get feelings for the girl, she'd begun to subconsciously factor her into the equation, and, ultimately, when she turned the drugs over to Red, it was because she'd made that decision to be a better person _for _Lorna. To look after Lorna.

Of course, there were a billion other reasons, but she had been the tipping point.

Now that Lorna isn't talking to her (again), the void is there, begging to be filled, and the knowledge that she has the means to do it whenever she pleases burns in her mind 24/7. She tries to stick around Red, to remind herself that she had a family long before the doe-eyed, 5ft-tall brunette with the addictive laugh stumbled into it, but Red's got her own shit going on, and she seems oblivious to Nicky's struggle. She's too proud to go straight to her, to tell her what's going on, for fear of being smacked around the head and told to grow up. _You going to mess years of sobriety up for a girl?_

She wants to give herself a good hard shake. She didn't promise to look after Lorna because she wanted to be loved, but because _she loves her_ and she needs her to be safe, whether that's with or without her. But that doesn't change the fact that she's fucked it all up by making it something more than it needed to be. It doesn't change the fact that Lorna isn't talking to her, and god knows what's going on in that pretty little head of hers, what monsters are being created that she won't tell anybody about. Nobody else gets it. Nobody else even realises that the girl needs help. And okay so Nicky never really had a plan, never really thought that just loving her would solve the problem, but she was going to work something out, and now she feels like her own stupid selfishness and pride have fucked them both over, and she knows if anything happens to Lorna, it will be entirely her doing.

She goes to the laundry room, to the vent, plucks the grate off the wall, and takes a package out. She feels the weight of it in her hands, the familiarity. There's a buzz running through her veins already, that begs for more, and she wants to give in, wants to give it what it wants. For a long moment, she just sits there, her back to the door, the package in her lap, and she doesn't know what to do. She always knew it would come down to this, from that first day, staring at it through a grate in the wall, but she wanted to hope that it wouldn't. She wanted to hope that she could be different this time. That she wouldn't let it hold that power over her any longer.

Eventually, she puts it back, walks away.

* * *

There's no way of avoiding somebody when you're in prison with them.

There's also no way of avoiding talk, and whilst she's no stranger to the gossip at this point, it's even more unwanted when it's about Nicky. Sharing a cube with Boo, it's inevitable. She's always making some kind of inappropriate joke, always teasing, never knows when to leave it alone. One day, Lorna snaps, and she enjoys the look of shock on Boo's face when her fist connects with her jaw, the surprise that despite her size she actually _can_ pack quite a punch with her tiny hands. It's only satisfying for a moment though, because, predictably, Boo hits back, and Lorna finds herself in the infirmary with matching ice packs for her knuckles and her lip.

Their altercation doesn't land her in the SHU, but she does gain an awkward 'anger management' weekly meeting with her counsellor, and a bunk re-assignment, not to mention a swollen, split lip that doesn't go down for several days and draws even more attention to her. She doesn't miss the look of concern in Nicky's eyes at the lunch table, the way she spends the whole mealtime looking like she's desperate to say something, but doesn't. Red pats her on the back, a sly grin on her face and "that bitch had it coming" on her lips, but Lorna isn't proud of herself, doesn't find any glory in wiping the smirk off Boo's face. It's just another thing for her to be ashamed of, another reminder of all that's happened, all that could still happen. And it's the worst thing she's done since arriving at Litchfield, such a strong reminder that that monster inside of her is still there, still barely being contained.

She can't bear to even look at Nicky. She thinks that somehow just her gaze is going to unlock the truth behind what she did to Boo, the reason she lost her temper, and she can't let that happen. Much to her relief, Boo's ego is damaged too bad for her to further spread any rumours, and whilst working in electrical with Nicky is difficult, Lorna mostly manages to avoid being left alone with her.

* * *

Nicky fucks one of the newbies, thinks it will take her mind away from the heroin, from Lorna, from everything that's crumbling apart around her, but it doesn't. It makes it worse. The girl's too tall, too cocky, too forward. It's like Vause all over again, but less satisfying. All Nicky can think about is Lorna, how long it's been since she's had Lorna moaning her name over and over, how she's never been able to find the same connection in anyone else, probably never will.

She stops.

When they uncover the heroin, weeks after it's been stashed there, Boo doesn't blab to Caputo, but she does tell Red, and in most ways, that's worse.

"You believe her word over mine, Ma?"

Red's never looked more disappointed in her, and it aches right down in the pit of Nicky's stomach, only worsening when Red quietly replies, "you know I can always tell when you're lying" and walks away.

After that, she's frozen out of the family. Chapman's ensconced in whatever new feud she's got going with Alex, and vice-versa. Poussey is back glued to Taystee's side, and Nicky doesn't feel like third wheeling them, either. She feels completely alone. It's not a feeling that's particularly new to her because she used to spend plenty of time alone on the outside, and she's always searching for somewhere quiet and empty to spend some time alone in Litchfield, but the unsettling, empty feeling that it's paired with is something new. She knows it's sad, but she thinks she's felt more alive than ever since being put in prison. There's something so real and beautiful about all the friendships and relationships she's established in this dump, and she's not sure how long she can cling to them now that they all feel so far away.

The worst part is knowing that in every single case it's her own fault. She's the one who fucked up.

* * *

Watching Nicky fade into the background of Litchfield is heart wrenching.

Lorna wants so desperately to reach out for her, to tell her she's sorry, to cling to her and never ever let her go. But she can't. She knows she can't. For one thing, she isn't strong enough to keep herself afloat, so she can't be responsible for Nicky too.

Her head's feeling particularly fuzzy lately. The voices are quieter, and she knows she's much more herself on the outside, but that doesn't mean the faulty wires in her head are any less damaged. (She knows she's been working electrical for too long when she begins to think of herself as a badly wired lamp). She longs for the comfort of having a wedding to plan, or a honeymoon to gush over, but that's a coping mechanism she can't go back to. She knows that that should feel like something, that the mere fact she is well enough to know that her delusion_ was _a delusion is progress, but there's a part of her that aches to go back to that fantasy, and that's not healthy at all.

A much larger part of her aches for Nicky.

Since their last conversation (and she doesn't mean the time Nicky gruffly asked for a wrench, handed her chit over, and practically snatched the tool when Lorna handed it to her; she means the one that ruined everything), Lorna has had a lot of time to consider what she said and what Nicky said, and everything that went unsaid. She knows she isn't angry with Nicky, not really, that this distance she's forcing between them is for far deeper reasons than anger. The distance is for herself, not for Nicky, and she feels like maybe if she told her that, that would fix the lost look in Nicky's eyes, do something to distinguish the fire Lorna sees there. But at the same time, it's too dangerous.

After all, nothing frightens Lorna Morello like Lorna Morello does.

* * *

Red isn't talking to her. The family isn't talking to her. Norma, though she shares a cube with her, refuses to so much as acknowledge her.

So, she's pretty fucking shocked when possibly the last person she expects to come anywhere near her pops up in the doorway, asking if it's okay for her to come in.

Nicky stares at Lorna. She doesn't know what to think. A part of her wants to turn her away, knowing that whatever she has to say to her is probably just going to hurt her even more. But, a part of her _knows_ she could never ever turn her away even if she wanted to, so she lets her in, pats the empty space next to her, folds the page corner on her book down, and puts it away.

Lorna is hesitant to sit down, even more hesitant to speak, "so I guess I should just come out with it and say sorry," she finally says, twisting her hands nervously in her lap.

"For what? Not being into my pussy anymore? Or for treating me like I don't exist for the past two weeks? You've gotta be more specific."

There's such a bitter tone to her voice that Lorna visibly recoils, and there's such sadness in her eyes that it makes Nicky's heart sink, makes her want to bite back her own words.

"I deserved that," Lorna says, bobbing her head in one of the cute little nods that makes Nicky's knees go weak, "I've been pretty awful to you, haven't I? I guess I didn't realise just how much the SHU messed me up."

Nicky offers her a wry smile, "I'm not so sure it was the SHU, but yeah, my ego's taken a beating," then, when Lorna doesn't say anything, "you wanna talk about it?"

She isn't really all that surprised when Lorna shakes her head, "no, not really."

They sit there in an awkward silence for a moment, Lorna gazing intently at her lap, Nicky trying to train her eyes away from the brunette, but ultimately failing.

"I missed you," Lorna says, looking at her with wide, bright eyes, a timid smile ghosting at her lips.

"Yeah, I missed you too, kid."

* * *

Lorna is used to doing exactly as she's told when it comes to Red, but when she tells her she needs to freeze Nicky out again, she's not sure she can do it. They've only just begun to piece their friendship back together. Usually, she believes Red when she says she's only got Nicky's best interests at heart, that whatever lesson she is teaching Nicky is a necessary one, but this time, Lorna isn't convinced. Sure, she's not exactly thrilled about what happened either, but the point is Nicky stayed strong, didn't touch the stuff, and she doesn't get why Red isn't more grateful of that.

Then again, she's not always been great at looking at the bigger picture. She does tend to be left in the dark when it comes to Red's motives.

Still, something inside of her keeps telling her that she's moving back to unsafe territory and that she should back off. She can feel herself slipping. She doesn't want to go back to that place, and her mind keeps telling her that it's Nicky, that it's Nicky who is taking her back there.

She won't sit with her in the lunch hall, despite the over-enthusiastic way in which Nicky points to the seat opposite her when she picks up her tray. She quickly turns away, plants herself between Norma and Yoga Jones. During electrical, she makes small talk, can't stop herself from grinning every time Nicky does something to get her attention, but she doesn't wait around to walk out with Nicky after, doesn't follow her back to her cube to play cards, avoids going to the rec room when she sees she's in there. They talk in the shower line, and Nicky always ensures she says goodnight to her before she goes to bed, but it's becoming uncomfortable again, and a part of Lorna is glad. She needs the distance. The distance makes her head less fuzzy, keeps Red off her back.

* * *

Lorna is infuriating.

This isn't the first time she's been infuriating; it was infuriating when she was a shy but flirty newbie and all Nicky wanted was a quick fuck in the shower with her, but she was playing hard to get. It was even more infuriating when, days after Nicky had decided to stop chasing, decided that the back and forth between them was clearly nothing more than a game to Lorna, only to have Lorna practically beg her for it. It was infuriating when she wouldn't stop talking about Christopher even moments after screaming Nicky's name in the dark in the chapel. It was infuriating when she broke things off and wanted to pretend everything was normal, the most infuriating of all when she stopped talking to Nicky completely.

But now she's infuriating because she's blowing hot and cold, and Nicky has never been interested in that kind of a game.

She knows they're getting nowhere. She knows she should just be glad to have Lorna in any capacity, even if that is platonic, that having her in her life means more to her than anything else. It's not the idea that she'll never love her back, never want to be with her in that way again that is such a problem. It's that she's so on and off. That she can be flirtatious and fun one minute, and pretending like Nicky doesn't exist the next.

Nicky isn't stupid. She knows that at least part of it is down to Red. She storms into the greenhouse and attacks her like a puppy trying to tackle it's mother, and she's shutdown. Of course she's shutdown; it's Red. Red sends her away with her tail between her legs. That hurts a lot more than she cares to admit. This is not the first fight she and Red have had, but this feud has gone on for the longest on record. She always expected Red to eventually welcome her back with open arms, but she hasn't, and won't give any indication of intending to do so any time soon. And fuck of course that hurts. Nicky never had a mom that cared about her until Litchfield, until Red, and now she's experienced that feeling, losing it is even harder to swallow. She likes to put on this big tough guy image, pretend like she doesn't have feelings, but everyone around her can tell that this is secretly tearing her apart.

Lorna included, which is why it's _so fucking infuriating_ that she's playing around.

* * *

"Okay, be fucking straight with me. Red's put you up to this, hasn't she?"

Nicky corners her as she's leaving electrical, and she looks so weary, so tired, that Lorna feels guilt rush through her like a tidal wave. She should have known it was glaringly obvious what was going on, that it was only a matter of time before Nicky would see it.

"Put me up to what?" she squeaks slightly, fidgeting.

"This whole Mr. Freeze routine. I'm done with it. You're hot and cold so much I'm beginning to think you're a fucking Katy Perry song," she runs her fingers through her hair, lets out an exasperated sigh, "look, I'm tired of this game we're playing, can you just decide what the fuck it is you want?"

It's probably the way she's worded it, but suddenly Lorna starts to think that this isn't so much about Red as it is everything else they've been through, and she can't help it, can't help but replay that last big argument, and their conversation on the stairs, and all the things that her head's been telling her for so long. She clenches her jaw, stares Nicky out.

"I don't want what you want," she says, and her voice comes out a lot stronger than she thought it would.

"I _know that_," Nicky grinds out, and she grabs Lorna's arms, practically shakes her, "that is not what I am asking! I just need us to be on the same fucking page! I thought we were friends! Aren't we friends? Can't we even be friends, Lorna?"

It's so rare that she uses Lorna's first name, that it takes her by surprise, and for a second she falters, before shaking her head stubbornly, "I don't think we can. You don't want us to be friends and I... I can never ever be what you want me to be. I can't be friends with you all the while I know you're undressin' me with your eyes every time I talk to you. I can't be friends with you knowing you want somethin I ain't gonna be able to give you."

It's not what she had planned to say and she's not even sure it's completely true, but she still says it, still finds herself storming away from Nicky, ignoring her when she calls after her.

* * *

Three times is about Nicky's limit.

She's had it. Red's shoved her out of the circle. Lorna doesn't want anything to do with her. It's a constant cycle of being shoved away and pissed on (metaphorically, of course) by everyone she's ever loved or cared about, and Nicky has reached her fucking limit.

She sinks to her bed, runs her fingers through her hair, tears at her own scalp as her body is overcome by tears that she doesn't want to shed. She's so angry that she swipes at her locker, and all her books go flying, making a racket as they fall to the floor. Her knuckles catch the wall, but the pain doesn't even register. It's nothing in comparison to what she's feeling inside, in her heart and her head.

She scrapes her hand down her face, wipes her tears away, gets to her feet, and heads out, only pausing to pick up one of the items she's knocked onto the floor, kicking the rest under the bed.

* * *

Lorna's own words taste like bile in her mouth. When she closes her eyes, she sees the wounded expression on Nicky's face, and she feels sick. She opens them again, and she sees Nicky rush past her cube, and she has to bite her tongue to stop herself from calling out for her.

She looks like shit. Knowing that that's down to her, that she's done that, tears Lorna apart. She wishes with all her heart that she was different, that she wasn't such a difficult person to love, that _just for once_ she could have the strength to stop hurting the people she loves. She knows it's the only thing she's ever been good at, that she wrecks people and that's her main skill. Her parents (that accident, no matter how hard she tries to block it out of her memory, _was_ down to her, and she lives with the regret of it every single day), her sister, her brothers, Christopher, every person who has ever been stupid enough to get close to her. Nicky's one in a long list of fuck ups.

It takes her a moment to decide that she needs to fix things. She isn't even sure that Nicky will be willing to accept her apology, that this won't just be another part of the 'on/off, hot/cold' personality that she's developed that Nicky loathes, but she does know it's worth trying. It's always worth trying when it comes to somebody you love. And she _does_ love Nicky, even if it isn't necessarily in the way Nicky wants her to.

* * *

She's relieved to find the bathroom relatively empty. She needs to be alone, uninterrupted.

Not that anybody here would want to interrupt her now, anyway.

Nicky sinks into a shower stall fully dressed. She sighs, runs her fingers through her hair, exhales sharply, inhales. Her head's foggy. She forgot how foggy it could get. Most of her memories are of a blissful kind of mist that made every part of her warm, that made everything that little bit more endurable. She remembers the rush of adrenaline, the feeling that she could do absolutely anything. It enhanced her already easy-going, 'do whatever I fucking want' lifestyle. But now, it's not quite there. It doesn't feel quite the same. She wonders if it's because it's been so long. Maybe she's so fucked up now that there's no way back out of it, that even her drug of choice can't cure the dull ache in her head.

She turns the shower head on and falls back against the wall of the stall, closes her eyes, lets the water rush over her. It feels like dozens of tiny pin pricks. She smiles, laughs even, lets the water hit her face, enjoys how it feels running down the inside of her t-shirt, trickling along the scar between her breasts, making the flesh feel somehow more alive.

She may regret it tomorrow, but right now, this is the best decision she's ever made.

* * *

When Nicky doesn't show up at dinner, Lorna panics. She excuses herself as quickly as she can, and begins to look for her, is almost relieved when she hears the sound of water running in their bathroom.

"Nichols?" she calls, standing a little away from the stall, not really wanting to snoop on her.

She's met with no response.

"Nick, is that you?"

Nothing.

"Look, I know you're mad at me... I know what I said wasn't- well... I know I shouldn't have said those things. And I wanna make it right. I really do. Please, can we just talk?"

Nothing.

Lorna sighs. She's about ready to just walk away entirely when she realises that there's no towel hanging over the shower stall, and that a puddle of water is steadily growing outside of it. That's not entirely unusual for Litchfield, who gets their plumbing looked at maybe once every five years, but she's never noticed it as bad as it is now, and the final indicator is the plastic bag that she finds floating in the stream. She swallows, feeling her stomach twist into knots and her heart begin to race as she kneels down, picks the packet up with shaking fingers, turns it over in her hands. She finally stumbles closer to the stall and looks in.

Every muscle in her body tenses and she has to fight back the urge to be sick as she lunges herself into the stall, quickly turning the faucet off. She sinks to the bottom of the shower, ignoring the water that soaks her khaki pants. Her arms wrap around Nicky, pulling her close. She's fully dressed, soaking wet, and freezing cold. Worst of all, she's limp and unconscious. Lorna can feel the tears begin to flood her cheeks, mixing with the water that's dripping from Nicky's hair, and she clings to her, pulls her into her lap, shaking her, brushing her hair off her face.

"C'mon, Nick, wake up," she whispers, wiping at Nicky's face, cupping her jaw. She can't tell if the pulse she feels under her finger tips is Nicky's, or if it's just her own heart pounding so loudly she can't tell the difference, "I'm not gonna be mad. No one's gonna be mad. Please. Come on. Wake up for me."

She clings to her, presses her lips to Nicky's. Their damp and cold and lifeless and she's wondered for so long what it would feel like to kiss her, but this isn't it. This is far from it. She's shaking and she knows she's holding on too tight, but she isn't ready to let go of her, and Nicky's not moving, not reacting. She can't even see the rise and fall of her chest that might indicate she's breathing. Her face is so pale, clammy, her lips a far lighter shade of pink, almost lilac. Lorna pulls her closer, kissing her forehead, her hair, rocking back and forth with her nestled in her lap.

"I'm here Nicky, I'm here. I... I love you too. I promise I'm gonna do better. I'm gonna- please Nicky," she's choking on her own tears and her vision's blurry and she just keeps talking, keeps clinging on, "I love you so much, please Nicky, please tell me you love me back? Please."

But a part of her knows it's too late and Nicky's already gone.

* * *

**A/N: **don't worry, I've already booked my one-way ticket to hell. But I would be really interested to hear your thoughts on this if you care to share even if it's 'oh my god never write anything ever again'.


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